Azura and the Box

BLM:90 WHM:90 SMN:90 THF:90 WAR:90 DRK:90 RNG:90 PLD:90

Do you know why I can continue to go on in the world? Because I have no debts. I don't owe a goddamned thing. Every card I used, every mailbox I crashed, every kitty I molested, I did with good intentions. And like other things, if you did it with good intentions then you aren't capable of crime because it doesn't occur to you that you are taking from the world.  You probably suffer more from others' conscience of what they heard and them ACTING on it, than you do from remembering what you did or from law enforcement.

That's because I am not doing illegal things EVERYDAY like some people.  


When people take a risk on you and lend you money, you owe them money, but it's money they do not get to have returned to them unless you are able to make good on your debt.  Which means they don't DESERVE to get paid, they took a risk.  Rich people, the ones that lend money, expect to double their money from you in 3 years. That is, 33% x 3, almost 100% profit after 3 years.  Outrageous isn't it.  So why not move that number further down?  Because people default, or never pay back THEIR loans, and to make up for those people, THIS is the number.


I have not seen something as BIG GOVERNMENT as I did when I saw my student loans become "non-expungable". And this was under Reagan, a Republican.  He was a person from the LESS GOVERNMENT party.  I had this loan that was going to be discharged in bankruptcy and then suddenly it was NOT dischargeable.  I was a slave to that debt until WHENEVER.  So I stopped taking loans.  You will find my credit bureau BLANK now.  Because if I can't use it in good will, I won't use it.  And that is part of my story today is to tell you about Azura and the Box.  


It makes no difference, I hope you see now, which party you are for.  I am old now and that happened when I was 20 so it's clear to me that LESS GOVERNMENT or the Republican Party quaffs down de-regulation policy like the morning pill but if it becomes time to drill oil wells despite citizen concern for fracking, bankroll the banks because teenagers don't have a clue about loans or don't care, or even create a homeland security force on the basis of innuendo because it makes people with the money more likely to keep it longer, THEN BIG GOVT is O.K.  Then you ask your Senator about regulation and he says "What Bill?"


Similarly, the DEMOCRATS have no problem cutting unemployment, cutting food stamps, INCREASING tax subsidies for farmers a la the Farm Bill, do they?  They are as much a hypocrite as the Republicans sometimes.  Still, they are better in spirit, some of them, and thankfully when I hear Republicans like SECupp and Ann Coulter(Ann) talk, I realize that probably the media is making them(Republicans in general) sound stupid on purpose, probably to distract us from all the MONOPOLIES being created. So I try to tone down my dislike for Republicans despite what they do in Congress.  


Ok, so today I want to talk about Azura and the Box.   This morning I was petting the kitty.  Such a SWEET kitty. I have always been allergic to cat hair.  If I pet the cat and get it my eyes, my eyes flare up much like Bob Costas' eyes did.  But for some reason, it hasn't happened to me with this cat.  So I am petting it and petting it, suddenly it gets lazy and lays down, so I continue to pet it and for some reason it is REALLY enjoying me petting it.  He begins to quiver and I wonder WHAT could be so enjoyable?  Suddenly he pops his leg open.  


That reminds me of something.  


But never-mind that, I continue to pet him since I always do this in the morning and it's really a BUNCH of hair I pull off of him and he is purring his butt off... and then suddenly he BITES me. Oh it's just a light bite, like an excitable thing that happened really quick.  He didn't mean for it to be like that, so I rethink my notion to PUNT his butt and go wash my hands just in case I get an allergy later from touching my eyes.  Again I always wash after petting the cat.  


So this has nothing to do with Azura, I grant you.


In the game Morrowind, and indeed even in Skyrim, there were books you could pick up with VERY interesting short stories.  It was hell to start to read one because everything you were doing came to sudden stop while you finished reading the danged book, which usually took 10 minutes or so.  But if you managed that well, you could carry those books around and when it was time to eat, THEN... story time.


In the story, a well known elf priest promises to his good friend Gimli(not really his name in the story) that he will summon the dark princess Azura because of his loyalty to him and because Gimli is an old sage with not many days left to experience great things, so they both agree this is a good idea. But Gimli concocts a plan to trap the goddess, and doesn't tell his elf friend about it.  


So as the ritual proceeds, the elf summons Azura and pays tribute to her and introduces his friend into the hallowed hall of the princess.  Gimli, a dwarf, walks in with a FULL contingent of dwarves.  Azura believes this to be another part of the tribute and as they approach Gimli begins to speak.  

"Great Azura, we are here to bow to evidence of your power and knowledge, so to demonstrate that I have brought this box.  Can you tell me what is in it?"

At this blasphemy, Azura TURNS to her priest and gives him a look that makes his knees quake as though a freight train were running next to him.  She has been fooled, you see, now she will have to explain her magic in front of all the dwarven people or she will be proven a fraud and since the dwarves know none of THEM let out the secret of what is in the box, they all expect she will be proven a fraud.  


"Surely you could have provided a test more worthy to test my power..." she says, "there is a red-petaled rose in the box."   


The dwarf-sage Gimli, raises the box and opens it and reveals to all his people that the goddess was wrong, that the box was empty.  Everyone turns to the goddess and she is gone.  


Not a couple of years ago, my car was impounded but the odd thing was that the license plate was removed by the police, so when I went to pick up the car, I could not drive it back to the house.  


An odd question came up some months later during a DMV interview that asked if I had ever driven the car without a license.   I could not see the relevance of that question.  Why did they need to know if I had driven the car if I had no license?  Was this a trap?  


Earlier, I told you that I stopped using credit.  Yes, this is because I didn't expect people to charge me ridiculous amounts of money just because I could pay later.  The student loans were one reason,  but some years later, after being unable to claim bankruptcy to discharge my loans, I was involved in an accident which totaled my car at the time.  But that car had a car payment and insurance, and the bills racked up quickly, so I had the car towed to a repair shop and they said that it would take some time to find out how much it cost.  After a couple of weeks a guy there said it would be 8000.  I was like WHAT, so I asked him to give me the car back but that I could not afford that, at which point he said it would be $500 for having stored the car there, something he did not reveal before. I was screwed. He had already asked me if I wanted to sell the car and it was obvious to me that THIS was his way of asking harder.  


So I paid the guy the $500, even though I could not get to work and was behind in car payments and insurance and really was owing a lot of money to people.  The world changed for me that day.  Something in the world was just slightly off...  not the least of which was my great credit rating gone south.  


The sage-dwarf walked off with a satisfied look on his face, the story goes, because finally he had bested a God.  And as his aging decrepit body dozed off to his final sleep, a rose petal fell from his sleeve onto the floor.  


You see, there WAS a rose... then there wasn't.  


The elf wrote a book later making an account of this story as a possible explanation for ALL DWARVES vanishing from existence.

ps. It's not nice to fool mother nature, ya?